PJ Saves the World: Cholera Update written 22 November from St. Louis du Nord (I couldn't figure out how to post this from my crackberry as a note!)

It's a little past 5am, and I'm up watching the sunrise on the roof of a special needs orphanage in St. Louis du Nord while getting ready for a full day of "cholera-palooza".

The ride here from Port de Paix last night was rather interesting. We drove through two parts of a political rally (elections are the 28th), and the second part was a mob of people who flooded the streets. We sat in the truck as literally a thousand or more locals marched, danced, and chanted around us that the opposition has cholera.

Don't worry, we were safe. We are a whole world away from the riots in CAP. Political demonstrations here are like street parties with a purpose - lots of music, people dancing/marching, t-shirts and posters of the candidate... Far more entertaining that watching a debate on TV...

Here at the hospital, the census is actually down from a week ago, but it has been rainy and stormy up here for days. And anyone who knows Haiti knows that this sort of weather keeps people at home. They are scared of the rain. Which means by the time we see them they are critically ill, or they die at home.

(For the record, Haitians would not do well in the Pacific Northwest.)

I got the link below from Jen, the doctor I work with over at Heartline Ministries.

http://biosurveillance.typepad.com/haiti_operational_biosurv/2010/11/notes-from-the-epicenter-we-are-out-of-everything-cholera-haiti.html

We are hearing stories like this from all over the country. Yesterday we came in on a very small plane that Big Dave and I crammed full of Lactated Ringers and other lifesaving supplies. We had to shuffle cases of LR over to a hospital in Port de Paix last night because they literally didn't have enough to make it through the night.

The UN report (OCHA Haiti) on the November 16th stated:

"The Ministry of Health reports 1,039 dead and 16,799 hospitalised cases of cholera."

From what I've seen, I am sure that those numbers are way too low - many of the smaller facilities are so understaffed and overwhelmed, there is no time to report cases.